


Watch the Stars

by aghamora



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 16:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12987789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: In which Frank introduces the baby to the musical stylings of DJ Frankie D, and Laurel is not amused. (Spoiler alert: she totally is.)





	Watch the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I envisioned this taking place in that lil gap of time after Laurel gives Frank the paternity test but before shit went down with the other K4.... but it can sort of fit wherever you want it to.
> 
> And I know I do this all the time with fics but [here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTFUM4Uh_6Y) the song Frank plays the baby.... and [here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCF1_jI8Prk) the one Laurel plays. Mood music my dudes. Essential.

“I have an idea.”

Those four words from anyone at this point in her life would make Laurel wary, given the abundance of bad ideas it seems like she finds herself surrounded by every hour of every day; most of which, admittedly, she’s complicit in.

From Frank, though. From him, they make her even more so.

Laurel peers at him over her stomach from her spot on the bed, brow furrowed. “… What?”

He’s lingering near the door, holding a plastic grocery bag in his hands and fidgeting nervously, suppressing his eagerness. He doesn’t look like he’s about to propose marriage, though him doing such a thing wouldn’t be entirely out of character; honestly, she’d been half-afraid he was going to drop down on one knee the night he’d barged in to show her his LSAT score and sworn eternal devotion in that very blunt, very Frank, clumsily romantic way of his. And unless he’s planning on sliding a Ring Pop from the grocery store onto her finger right about now, then she has no clue what this _idea_ could be.

He reaches in slowly, hesitating again, before finally withdrawing a pair of headphones: the large, over-the-ear kind which she’s pretty sure no one uses anymore. He plugs them into his phone then strides over, sinking down next to her.

“Let’s play him some music,” he suggests, with a sheepish, endearing grin. “I, uh… I read somewhere it’s supposed to make babies smarter. ‘S good for ‘em. Y’know, like hearin’ voices is good for ‘em.”

This time it’s she who hesitates – because they’ve gotten good at maintaining a comfortable distance, not too close and not too far, and this will most definitely cross that line, upset that careful balance. She wants to say no, brush the idea off, but Frank just looks so damn _excited_ that she can’t help but melt, rolling her eyes.

“What, you gonna play him Beethoven or something? Kinda cliché.”

“Nah. Just you wait,” he teases, and holds out the headphones. “Now we doin’ this or what?”

His words are joking but inherently tentative; he doesn’t dare to take any liberties with her, touch her stomach, and as grateful as she is that he heeds the boundaries she’s established between them, a secret, hopelessly stupid part of her can’t help but hope that those boundaries didn’t exist at all, that he’d be bold enough to break them down, press his palm against the curve of her belly, the swell of their child.

 _Their_. Their child. She’d thought of it that way almost subconsciously, and the thought doesn’t unsettle her like she might have thought it would, once. It doesn’t unsettle her at all.

“Fine,” she says, and relents, pulling up her sweater to reveal her stomach beneath. “But I reserve the right to veto any of your music choices, just so you know. I’m not having him come out a John Mayer superfan.”

There’s a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Aw c’mon, we play him ‘Your Body is a Wonderland’ as a lullaby for the next couple months, he’ll come out an _automatic_ lady killer. Can buy him a mini acoustic guitar and hair gel an’ everything.”

“We are keeping all in-utero jam sessions strictly PG. _And_ Mayer-free.”

“Fine. No Mayer. I’m givin’ you DJ Frankie D’s scout’s honor.” He grins cheekily, and she can’t help but think how nice this feels; just talking to him, joking around, no loaded questions or tense silences. It’s so easy, falling back into this rhythm with Frank. It feels almost like it was, in a past life.

Frank holds up the headphones, nodding down at her stomach. “You wanna, or-?”

He hesitates even to get anywhere near her stomach, almost like he’s afraid she might bite his head off if he does, if he ventures too close to the child that is and isn’t yet his. They’re still finding their footing together – but again, Laurel finds herself wishing with everything in her that there was no hesitation, no distance between them. She wants it so bad she can’t breathe.

Without a word, Laurel takes the headphones, settling one ear over each side of the bump, and she can’t help but scoff at how ridiculous it looks – though Frank isn’t smiling, anymore; he’s just staring, eyes wide with childlike wonder, worshipful in a way that makes her squirm as much as it fills her with warmth. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, she can tell; looking at her like she’s his entire world, carrying their entire world inside her. Really, he just looks so stupidly _happy_ , a huge, dumb grin on his face she hasn’t seen in so long.

“Ready?” he asks, holding up his phone, and she rolls her eyes but nods, laying back against the pillow.

Frank smirks, hits play. And when the first thing she hears is Pavarotti’s distinctive, operatic tenor come over the headphones, she can’t help but laugh.

“Oh my God,” she scoffs. “Really?”

Frank feigns offense. “You got beef with Pavarotti now?”

“I – no, I just…” She laughs again. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for an opera buff, that’s all.”

“I grew up listening to this kinda stuff. Verdi. Puccini. My ma used to play it all the time ‘round the house. Reminds me of when I was a kid. Plus – hey, this way he gets a jumpstart on learnin’ Italian. What better teacher than the greatest Italian tenor of all time?”

“You’re a total opera nerd,” she states, almost disbelieving. “I cannot _wait_ to tell the others.”

“Hey,” he chides. “Opera is manly. I got no shame. Go ‘head and tell ‘em.”

Laurel adjusts the headphones on her stomach, still grinning like a fool. “What’s the name of this song anyway?”

“It’s not called a _song_ ,” he corrects, gently. “It’s called an aria. _Nessun dorma_. It’s about a prince who wants to marry this princess, but she’s cold. Cruel. He has to answer three riddles right to marry her, else he gets his head chopped off. Everyone keeps tryin’ to get him to give her up. But he won’t. And when he finally answers right and she still doesn’t wanna marry him, he tells her if she can figure out his name, then he’ll die. He sings this the night before. ‘Bout how he knows he’ll win. Win her heart.”

“Mmm,” she hums, trying not to feel the weight of his gaze, the meaning behind it. A story of hopeless, fated love, the reluctant princess and the undaunted price. She can’t deny it sounds a bit too familiar for comfort. “How’s it end? He get the girl or not?”

“He tells her his name, eventually. Gives her the power to destroy him if she wants to. But she doesn’t.” His grin widens, ever so slightly. “Eventually she realizes she loves him too. Just… takes her a bit longer. And he always believes she will. Knows she will.”

He’s looking at her closely, gauging her reaction to that. His intent isn’t inconspicuous at all, if that’s what he’s going for, but Frank’s intentions are generally always glaringly obvious; he’s never sly, despite his best efforts, with this song and story that feel unnervingly congruous with their own.

“It’s not worth it,” she remarks, in a weak attempt to build some sort of wall between them, shut this down before it can get out of hand. “Dying for love.”

He shrinks a little at the words, almost imperceptibly. “Maybe.”

Silence descends over them, as the muffled sounds of the song coming over the headphones draws to a close. It’s then that Laurel reaches for his phone, her mind made up, and takes it out of his hand.

“I’ve got a better idea. Here.”

“Hey, I worked on this playlist for him all day yesterday-”

“We’ll go back to it. Let’s… play him some real music, for a bit,” she assures him, fingers tapping away, until she navigates her way to ‘Gasolina’ by Daddy Yankee in his music app and hits play triumphantly. “And if we’re teaching him Italian, we’re teaching him Spanish too.”

 _We’re_. The word slips out unbidden, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Frank. She can tell by the way his eyes light up when he hears it.

Frank leans in, closer to where the headphones rest on her stomach, and when he finally discerns the song coming over them, he scoffs.

“What, forreal? You said we were keepin’ it PG – how’s Mayer worse than this?”

“Excuse me? Daddy Yankee’s a classic. And better than Pavarotti. Right?” she angles her head forward slightly, addressing the baby. She receives no response, no kick or nudge, but shrugs anyway as if she has. “He agrees with me.”

“Yeah right, you don’t know that.”

She gives a joking huff, breathless from the weight of the baby crushing her lungs. “I’ll have you know reggaetón is scientifically proven to make babies smarter.”

“More like scientifically proven to blow their eardrums out.”

“My uterus, my rules.”

Frank laughs, free and full in a way that makes her heart clench. “Fair enough.”

They lapse into silence, punctuated now and then by the beat blaring faintly over the headphones. Laurel can’t deny she looks ridiculous, but the way Frank is staring at her stomach with all the love in the world makes her feel less so, makes her not even care how she looks at all. Her skin is gilded in the dim orange light, stretched tight over the growing swell, and he’s staring as if he’s never seen anything like it before in his life, like he never will again.

The song fades, and even after it’s done they don’t move, don’t say a word. They just stay where they are, her lying on her back, him seated beside her with the comfortable stillness enveloping them, and after a moment he purses his lips, suddenly grave.

“I don’t like this plan, Laurel,” he confesses, and she can’t help but blink at the sudden change in his demeanor. He looks downright terrified, as scared as she’s ever seen him.

“Frank…”

“You know what your dad’s capable of better ‘n anyone. I can’t-” He lowers his eyes. “I can’t have anythin’ happening to you. Either one of you. I just… I want you both to be safe.”

She softens, but stands her ground, jaw set. “You know I have to do this.”

Frank wilts, ever so slightly, but he can tell there’s no convincing her, no changing her mind, and so, wisely, he doesn’t try. “I know.”

He worries, she knows. About her, the baby. Frank worries far more than he lets on; there’s some pervasive sense of doom hanging over him, like he can sense something bad in the air, something inevitable – because something bad always happens, to them. He’s afraid, and if she’s being honest so is she, though she’ll die before admitting that, backing down now when they’ve come so far.

A moment passes. Then, he rises to stand with a sigh. “It’s late. I, uh… I should head out.”

Panic jolts through her. It hits her, all at once, that she doesn’t want him to. She doesn’t want him to leave though she’s not entirely sure she’s ready for him to _stay_ , either – but before she can think twice her hand is shooting out, catching his wrist.

“No,” she murmurs, soft but certain. “Stay.”

The last time she asked him to stay it was nothing like this – because she doesn’t _do_ this anymore, stitch her heart on her sleeve, put herself at someone else’s mercy, especially not Frank’s, God, anyone’s but his. The last time she asked him to stay she wasn’t doing much _asking_ at all, ordering him inside like a dog, letting him back into her life and damning herself in the process.

She tries not to remember that night, but suddenly it’s all she can think about. She looks at him, feels the electric brush of his skin against hers, and she knows he’s remembering, too.

She doesn’t have to give him any explicit directions, clarify what she wants; she only rolls over onto her side – the only marginally comfortable sleeping position for her these days – and he takes the hint, climbing into the bed with her, pressing himself against her from behind very lightly, as chastely as he can. He’s all hesitation, boyish indecision. She can tell he wants to touch her yet doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, and so finally, after lying there for a minute, Laurel gives a frustrated huff and reaches back, dragging his arm around her. Doing what he won’t dare to.

She lays his hand on her stomach, placing her own over it. She doesn’t know quite why she does it; only that it feels right. Only that she _needs_ to. She can hear his heart beating behind her, thudding in time with her own, and she imagines, for just a moment, that she can hear the tiny heartbeat deep inside her, too, against all logic and sense. It reverberates through him like it does through her. As much of a part of him as it is a part of her, in that moment.

She doesn’t know what’s coming tomorrow, imminent doom or certain disaster or some particularly catastrophic combination of both. But tonight – tonight, at least, she feels with him something she hasn’t felt in so long.

Safe.


End file.
